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In a 2003 jailhouse interview with The Chronicle, Parnell admitted that he had tried to buy the boy to experience the "love and respect" that a son has for a father. Her mother had been dating him and he had decided to kill them on Valentines Day. A relatively quiet, but friendly, a motel handyman called Cary Stayners only passions seemed to be nude sunbathing and hiking. The brothers, four years apart in age, shared a room, but didnt get along, Steven didn't understand the rules that he was now expected to live by. In mid-July of 2002, the trial began in Judge Thomas C. Hastings courtroom. Steven told the police what happened to him and Timothy and he was also able to tell them his real name was Steven, not Dennis. At that time, Steven had been forced to endure sexual abuse by his kidnapper, whom he finally turned in to the police. Parnell was convicted on kidnapping and false imprisonment charges. Quotes I never recognized either one of them.". FBI agent Nick Rossi said on February 26, "At this point, we have not yet uncovered evidence to allow us to determine conclusively whether this was a tragic accident or a criminal act. Two weeks later, FBI agent James Maddock, now placed in charge of the investigation, told the press, "We feel almost certain that the women were victims of a violent crime.". He did feel, however, that the FBI spared nothing to investigate the earlier killings. It was dark when they arrived and Timmy could remember where he lived so they went to the police station. ", The FBI was reluctant to finger Stayner because, they, and many others, did not believe that Stayner acted by himself, given the brazen killing of the three women in the Cedar Lodge Motel and the disposal of the bodies. While Steven was a freshman at Mendocino High School, some 300 miles to the south, his older brother Cary was an upperclassman at Merced High School. 5-year-old Timothy White walking home from school and they quickly snatched him. Agents arrived at the scene early on the 19th and upon opening the trunk, investigators found two charred bodies. Woman recalls moment family learned they were target of 1999 Steven was a national hero. Then Carole's wallet turned up in Modesto, which included money and credit cards. Agents had interviewed Stayner, a handyman at the Cedar Lodge where the tourists had stayed, and later dismissed him as a suspect. ", FBI sources claimed that he had already confessed his guilt during the Saturday evening interrogation. Ive never seen anything thats so close to black and white and evil and good as Stayner and our children, said Francis Carrington, the father of Carole Sund and grandfather of Juli. Steven Stayner was just seven-years-old when he was abducted a few blocks from his home in Merced, Stayners father, Delbert Stayner, said his son was deprived of a fair trial by a kangaroo court and a judge who ignored defense arguments. Stayner, clad in a red jail jumpsuit, bowed his head but showed no emotion as Judge Hastings sentenced him to death three times, once for each murder, after returning to the courtroom. You could see that he wanted to play and be with kids and be normal. Kenneth"Soldier" Stewart, 24, a former cellmate of Dykes who was charged with attempted murder. How frightened the girls must have been when he cut their clothes off.. On Good Morning America in March 1980, Steven shared with host David Hartman that it felt "great" to be home. Cary, as the older brother, had a very strange relationship now with his younger brother, Steven, who was getting all of this attention and who was a different person, former KNTV reporter Ted Rowlands told ABC News. I wish I could have controlled myself and not done what I did. He demanded that his parents be given the reward money, that he be incarcerated at a prison near his parents home, and, to Stayners detriment, that he be given a large cache of child pornography. But, as the Hulu doc frames it, the media attention that Steven got after escaping his abductor and also saving Timothy White had a dark side both for Steven and for the rest of his family. Cary was 11 years old at the time, and deeply upset about his brother's disappearance. "The only time Steve would kill anything like a fish is because we were gonna eat it. After a couple of weeks, he upped the sum to $300,000. To the dismay of the Stayner family, the case went cold. The FBI pushed for Strange's arrest, but he denied any part in the triple murders. WebThe story of Steven and Cary Stayner will leave you in absolute disbelief. | She also happens to have a front row seat to two true crime narratives in her own family. "We never really got along that well after he came back All of a sudden Steve was getting all these gifts, getting all this clothing, getting all this attention. According to Special Agent Christopher Hopkins , both the FBI's Evidence Response Team and the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office collected items of potential interest from Room 509 at the Cedar Lodge Motel, the room in which Stayner sexually assaulted Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso and murdered both Carole Sund and Silvina. He is currently in his 60s and still on death row while incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. Acting on a tip from a caller who was worried about the whereabouts of his friend, Joie Ruth Armstrong, 26, park rangers found her decapitated body on the morning of July 22, 1999. Investigators searched his truck and confiscated his backpack for examination. Stayner, 38, has been charged with murder in the July 21 death of naturalist Joie Armstrong. Check-out had apparently been done in advance and the keys were left on the room desk. "He had a great personality," said Lori Duke, who dated Steven in high school but knew him as Dennis. In a jailhouse interview with a television reporter, he said he did not rape any of the women. The revelation came in a six He also struggled in high school where he was bullied for the abuse he had endured. In the Bureau's mind, this time it had the right man. The California Highway Patrol verified the car's license plate as the Sunds rented vehicle and immediately notified the FBI. The prosecution team was headed by George Williamson and the defense team was headed by Marcia Morrissey. On days off he would escape to Laguna Del Sol, a nudist colony in Sacramento County. A woman named Lenna learned in 1999 that her mother, her sister and her had nearly been murdered by Cary Stayner. On February 15, the ladies hiked into Yosemite National Park on one of the many trails. For four weeks, police, family, and volunteers searched the area in and near Yosemite National Park by helicopter, foot, and skis. He walked naked and and smoked pot, he could find the peace that he so desperately needed. He was known to take refuge in nearby Yosemite, where hed drive up and get lost in nature. Items included in the Television News search service. On February 12, 1999, Carole Sund, 42, her daughter Juli 15, and Silvina Pelosso 16, left their home in Eureka, California to go on vacation in the area near Yosemite National Park in the same state in the United States. The issue of whether his confession was coerced seemed to be resolved when on July 24, the court heard the recorded demands that Stayner made to the FBI agents that he wanted to be satisfied before he would give them his confession. I guess I was jealous. Caroles parents, Francis and Carole Carrington, appeared on the Good Morning, America TV show, to ask for the prayers of Americans and their help in locating their daughter and the children. Campbell, when first arrested on mail fraud charges, had in her possession Carole Sund's checking account and automated teller machine numbers. That same day, Stayner allowed himself to be interviewed by a reporter from KNTV. . He was buried Thursday in the town of Newhall, where he had worked as a Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy. Cory gets emotional as she describes how he fell through the cracks of familial or institutional care. Goofs Jens had scheduled to meet them at the San Francisco airport that evening on his way to Arizona, to where the others were to accompany him. The Cedar Lodge hired him as a handyman in 1997 and gave him the use of a small apartment on the top floor. Initially, the police didn't have any solid leads as to who killed them. They had been hosting Silvina, who was a foreign exchange student from Argentina and a friend of Juli's, She was spending three months with the family. But instead of seeking mental health treatment, he moved to Yosemite. Steven Stayners fame was short-lived. Ken Parnell went back to what he had been doing for years. While he attended his meeting, the women were to tour the Grand Canyon. Because of the discovery of Sund's wallet in suburban Modesto, police, and FBI searched "the logical routes in and out of that spot, interviewing homeowners and business owners and others who may have seen them." During an off-camera jailhouse interview in Sacramento following his arrest, Cary admitted to Armstrong's murder as well as the murders of Carole Sund, 42, her He was arrested in May on an unrelated crime charge but was soon released. Cary looked out for Steven, according to Cary Stayner's former classmate Jack Bungart. When Cary Stayner was questioned by FBI agents, he immediately confessed to the four Yosemite Park murders and provided a detailed accounting of his crimes. Then all of a sudden it's gone. In a voice that seemed relieved to be unburdened from its depth a long-kept secret, Stayner blurted, "I am guilty. After the fourth murder, the FBI went looking for Cary Stayner to interview him, but initially as a witness. Timothy Lee White, 5, gets a piggyback ride from 14-year-old Steven Stayner at a news conference in Ukiah, California, in 1980, Kenneth Parnell stops the car and goes to a payphone, he comes back and tells Steven, Your parents, I just spoke to them. Some who knew Cary were shocked at his arrest. I want a movie-of-the-week made about my story. There was a movie made about Steven Stayner. Darrell Gray Stephens, 55, Strange's roommate. Had no interest in girls, had no interest in people, he was just a creepy loner. You know what I mean? I guess seven years changed him, too. By the time Steven was 14, he had been abused and manipulated by Parnell for seven years and Parnell and Steven together realized that Steven was growing up and that he was no longer going to be controlled by Parnell and they would need to find someone else that they could sexually abuse. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. He remains on Because he was the handyman at the Cedar Lodge in El Portal where the Sund & Pelosso group had stayed before they were murdered, his questioning at that time seems to have been more routine than anything. Those sources say it is difficult for some investigators to believe Stayner could have gotten the jump on all three women without any help, let alone dispose of their bodies.". "Her mother, sisters, and a family friend had been missing for a month by the time Gina Sund read her poem in front of a thousand or so people who gathered in Modesto," writes Time. Ashley Stayner is a self-professed true crime fan. But when Parnell kidnapped another young boy, this time 5-year-old Timothy White, Steven knew he couldnt let another child be subjected to the abuse and torment he had faced for years. It was not animated or digitally created; a stunt driver put the truck into a full controlled jackknife in front of the camera. I was the oldest and all that. Among other things, the FBI Laboratory has found hairs in vacuum sweepings taken from Room 509 and possibly body fluid stains on a blanket (and) a latent palm print from the window sill. Cary was off anybody and everybody who met him will tell "'Deep in my heart I know something my mind does not want to learn,' said Gina,13. Stayner was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Joie Ruth Armstrong. During the session, an unexpected event occurred. He was charged with attempting to purchase a child and attempted child molestation in 2004, that he was sentenced to 25 years to life. Stayner said he thought he had gotten away with the earlier crimes, but could not resist the urge to kill Armstrong after he struck up a chance conversation with her. ", Stayner's apartment was searched later in the day and the authorities discovered evidence that linked him to Armstrong's murder. Real Crime 1.23M subscribers Join Subscribe 6.7K 562K views 1 year ago Also known as the Yosemite Park Killer, Cary Stayner murdered four women in 1999 The Stayner family was made up of two brothers, three sisters, and parents Kay and Delbert. "I'm confident we've done everything that could be reasonably done.". He paid a local kid to ride with him to the town of Ukiah, California and he told to go and find him a boy. Although most of the stains were likely to include Armstrong's blood, Stayner was observed to have a laceration on his hand during his interrogation, and therefore may have been cut and bled during the attack.